March 28, 2010

World's oldest technical project in Kalambaka

My translation of parts of the article in the Vima which appears to be the most informative source for the new discoveries:

In Kalambaka, the most ancient technical project

The most ancient technical project of Greece, probably in the world, is found in the Theopetra cave of Kalambaka and is 23,000 years old. It is a stone wall that had been constructed in the entrance of the cave, blocking its entrance by 2/3. This construction -stone pile to be precise- was studied and dated by the "Democritus" center, which presented yesterday the results. The age coincides precisely with the coldest period of the last glacial age, suggesting that the Paleolithic inhabitants of the cave had constructed this wall at its entrance to protect themselves from the harsh cold of the times.

Remnants of fire, tools made of pyritolithus (?) and quartz, early jewellery from deerteeth, stone implements and ceramics have come to light in the prehistoric cave of Theopetra during the excavations conducted by Dr. Nina Kyparissi-Apostolika for 25 years, ephor of Palaeoanthropology and Speleology of southern Greece of the Ministry of Culture. Human skeletons have been rarely discovered. On the contrary, there are many animal bones from all periods during which the cave was in use. Of interest are finds from the Mesolithic age related to ceramic production and cultivation. There is barley, wheat, and lentil in wild (Paleolithic age) form, but also as cultivars, which suggests that these people had discovered cultivation as the result of millennia-long efforts and not as the result of population movements from the Near East.

26 comments:

As you know, Kalambaka lies at the top of the Trikala plain, and at the gateway to Kastoria-Grevena-Trikala route. Even today, there are only two north south routes in Central Greece. The first is the Kastoria-Grevena-Trikala route. The second is the highway 3 route from Kozani to Larisa.

That puts Kalambaka at a strategic position between an arable, fertile plain to the south, the Southern Pindos, which even today is quite plentiful with wild animals and a route to the Balkan north.

Such a position would have been ideal for a hunter-gatherer-cultivator lifestyle.

Anybody who has read a little about the history of the Meteora monasteries and its unique geology will also immediately grasp the significance of the cave.

I'm putting up some links to try to capture the magic of this area:

View from Meteora, looking west, toward the Pindos. Meteora is a little south of Trikala:http://www.flickr.com/photos/foivosloxias/4275460505/

Meteora and the Pindos, looking southwest:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:07Meteora_Kalambaka01.jpg

For what it's worth, Kalambaka also lies at the gateway between the southern most point of Western Macedonia and the northern most point of Western Thessaly.

According to Google Translate, πυριτόλιθο is "flint", which makes sense in the article.

Yes:

Enter the webpage "http://www.babylon.com/define/105/Greek-Dictionary.html", then type "flint" and click "Define".

You'll see that "πυριτόλιθο" has other variants in Modern Greek ("τσακμακόπετρα" and "πυρόλιθος"), which are I suppose more colloquial.

Btw, "τσακμακ" part of "τσακμακόπετρα" comes from the Turkish word "cakmak" ('c' is read like the 'ch' of "chain"). It means "lighter" in Turkish. In fact, the Turkish equivalent of the word "flint" is "cakmaktasi" (lit. lighter stone/rock), which is the literal equivalent of the word "τσακμακόπετρα" (lit. cakmak/lighter stone/rock).

Not sure what "technical project" means in this kind of translation. Is the sense meant similar in meaning to "factory" or "workshop"?

It is hard for me to fit "technical project" which conjures up electronic devices and test tubes in my mind (and more importantly conveys the idea of scientific research) with a bunch of stone and bone tools.

My question is what the idiomatic meaning of the word is, because the phase wouldn't be used that was in ordinary English. It looks like a "false friend" where a similar looking and etymologically related word is no longer an accurate idiomatic translation of the original.

Indeed, the idea of revealing is embedded in the meaning of the word technology. Technologycomes to us from the ancient Greek technikon and “technikon means that which belongs totechne” (Heidegger 1977, 12). The word techne is associated with the word episteme and bothwords are used to describe “knowing in the widest sense. They mean to be entirely at home in something, to understand and be expert in it. Such knowing provides an opening up.”

Old Blog Archive

Dienekes' Anthropology blog is dedicated to human population genetics, physical anthropology, archaeology, and history.

You are free to reuse any of the materials of this blog for non-commercial purposes, as long as you attribute them to Dienekes Pontikos and provide a link to either the individual blog entry or to Dienekes Anthropology Blog.

Feel free to send e-mail to Dienekes Pontikos, or follow @dienekesp on Twitter.